Ollivander's Journey
by green.converse
Summary: How did Garrick Ollivander become the finest wand maker in all of Europe, if not the world? It wasn't just by sitting around in his fathers shop or by reading books. Follow the young wizard as he travels across the Atlantic to learn from the young wand makers making waves in America!
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

As the cloaked young man stepped into the quiet tavern, the bartender looked up from his work. "Garrick!," he exclaimed! "Where the hell have you been?" "Sorry Jacob," the one called Garrick replied. He had been late, of course for the third day in a row. Something about time and how it just kept slipping by him. "If you're late again, you're fired. And I mean it this time."

Garrick wasn't quite so sure of this, as Jacob had been threatening to fire him for the past six months, essentially the length of his entire career at the Leaky Cauldron. However, he didn't feel like testing his luck right now and made a mental note to try and be early the next day. He was working here part time, after all so that he could afford to study abroad, which wasn't cheap. He couldn't expect any help from his family either as his father was expecting him to stay home and man the family business. But there was no way he was going to do that, at least not with how things are currently.

"If you expect to get paid for today, you're staying late and cleaning the tables," the older man shouted at Garrick from across the bar. "Yea, yea…" he replied somewhat exasperated. Not that he actually minded. The work he did here was dull and repetitive and allowed him to divert his attention to a more pressing matter, the very reason why he was late. His research.

He was a wand-maker, or rather, a wand-maker's apprentice. The shop he worked in was the best in all of Britain, a fact of which he was most proud. The problem, however, was that the shop was owned by his father, Gervaise Ollivander, a rather unambitious man who likes to focus only in the hard work and technique of crafting these most valued tools of wizards and witches, as opposed to what actually makes wands reliable and strong. The reason that the shop had done so well for so long was because they had been the first true wand-makers around, in 328 B.C. As such, the Ollivander name has been the first one to come to the minds of the vast majority of the Wizarding community for the past twenty two centuries, to which a large portion of their success can be accredited.

But what Garrick longed for was to travel around the world and study under the wand-makers at Ilvermorny, the American Wizarding school. No other school in the world contained teachings from more cultures than that. The school's founders, Isolt Sayer and James Steward, were famous wand-maker and it was said that their methods are still taught to the apprentices there.

Being stuck here, working in his father's shop in Diagon Alley, he would never become exceptional. He would learn the craft and learn it well, but Garrick Ollivander would never be a master. That is why he was constantly studying. That is why he wished to travel. The young man wished to become a master.

Several hours later, after the last customer had left and the mops had been charmed to clean the floors, the young wizard headed back home. It was late at night and Diagon Alley was all but empty, say for a wandering drunk here, or a dark figure turning down Knockturn Alley there. It wasn't long until Garrick was climbing the staircase that led to his family's flat above the famed wand shop. Upon entering, Garrick found his father, asleep on the couch, as usual.

While his father's vision was limited, he was still a good man, and an extremely hard worker. It was all too likely that he had come up from the workshop and not had the energy to make it to the bedroom that he shared with Garrick's mother and instead collapsed on the couch.

Seeing this, Garrick went to the closet and, after grabbing a blanket, draped it over his father. He stood for a moment in thought, then proceed to his room. Most of his former classmates from Hogwarts were living on their own now, two years after completing school, but Garrick was still here, learning what he must in order to take over the family business. _But not for long_ , he thought to himself. _Soon I will be on a boat to America._ With that in mind, he grabbed the book he had been reading before work, and picked up where he left off.

When he woke up the next morning, Garrick immediately got dressed and ready for the day, ate a quick breakfast, and hurried down to the workshop to begin the day's work. He began by sweeping out the shavings from the previous day's wand carvings and then sorting the various substances that his father used for wand cores, such as Kelpie hair and Kneazle whiskers.

By the time the clock reached five o'clock, Garrick was praying for a break in the monotony of such mundane and boring tasks. When at last he was free, he went up to read for the hour before he had to get to the Leaky Cauldron, to repeat the tasks from the days before, in a never ending cycle of his two jobs, his research, and sleep, with an occasional day off that he would just spend studying and reading more about wand-crafting.

He was just returning home from his shift at the Leaky Cauldron one night, when he noticed something was different. Well, perhaps noticed is the wrong word as he would have to be blind and deaf to miss it. There was a man sitting at the table in the kitchen, and it wasn't his father. In fact, Garrick had never seen this man before in his life. "Hello Mr. Ollivander."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

 _BOOM! CRASH!_ Garrick jolted awake at the sound of thunder. He could feel the ship lurching and bumping across the waves. _Blast it,_ he thought as he layed down and tried to get back to sleep. In the four days since he had left port, he hadn't been able to have a proper night's rest. _How did I end up in this mess,_ the young wand-maker thought to himself. Of course, reflecting back on that night only two weeks prior, it was no mystery. A stranger had appeared in his home and offered him a chance to realize his dream. What had he been thinking? Traveling across the ocean of the coin and word of someone he had only just met? But alas, here he was, nearly to America at this point and no way to turn back. His only consolation at this point was that in a matter of hours, he would be in New York City and be on his way to study wandlore in a whole new light. But he had a new goal as well.

He knew, however that he would not feel better until he was on dry land and could actually think without feeling like his brain was going to tip out. Usually he could have remedied this with a quick Charm, but with so many Muggles around, he hadn't had the chance and as they were due to make landfall in a matter of hours, he didn't see much of a point in doing it now. However, when the storm increased in intensity barely five minutes later, he heavily considered it but didn't believe himself capable of standing long enough to get to a private room.

Finally, about an hour before they were to pull into the port in New York, the storm let up and the sun began to shine. It was early morning now and children were beginning to run around and pick up their games where they had left them off the night before. Garrick chuckled with delight as the little ones ran past him. Such pure happiness was contagious to the young man and children seemed to be an eternal spring of happiness! _But soon, all I will have will be my studies and my fellow students,_ Garrick thought to himself. Not that that idea intimidated him, he was looking forward to the long nights and the hard studying. But what he was most excited about was finally having peers, fellow wand-makers that were his peers, someone who wasn't his father.

According to the papers left with him by the stranger in his kitchen, he was supposed to meet someone named Johannes Jonker later that day. Garrick was rather excited about this, as he assumed the man was a wand-maker! He would start his training that very day! He trembled with excitement, just imagining the feel of wand wood beneath his fingers! _Nothing better!,_ he thought rather cheerfully, especially for someone as motion-sick as he was at the moment.

The moment that the ship made port, Garrick was at the front of the line to disembark. With trunk in hand, he briskly walked down the ramp and took his first steps on New York ground. The matter of Muggle customs was a simple one. It was helped by the fact that all he really had were clothes and books, with his few tools tucked away in a small case. Nothing out of the ordinary for a craftsman, or at least that's what the guards at the port thought.

"Now for the matter of finding Mr. Jonker," he said to himself decidedly. He wasn't going to waste a single moment that he could be studying. Then his stomach grumbled. _Damn… Where am I going to find food?_ He checked the papers again. Apparently he was supposed to go somewhere called Hell's Kitchen, whatever that was. It sounded rather intimidating, but with this hunger, anything that sounded remotely like food was at least a little appealing, so to Hell's Kitchen it was.

He had walked for quite a while and had nearly reached the neighborhood when his hunger finally got the better of him. After looking around, he spied a deli and ducked inside. Garrick just purchased a sandwich with American Muggle money he had gotten from the Gringotts exchange when he suddenly had a feeling, as if someone was looking over his shoulder. He looked up and saw a woman staring intently at him from across the room. He caught her eye and a look of shock, like that of a child sneaking sweats, passed over her face. She turned and ran.

Garrick tried to pursue her but by the time he made it through the small crowd lined up in the deli and out the door, there was no sign of her. _But why was she looking at me like that?_ Something about her stare made Garrick immensely uncomfortable, but he wasn't sure what. Regardless, he returned to his trek, with his trunk in one hand and sandwich in the other.

It was mid afternoon by the time the young wand-maker found his destination, although it hadn't helped that he had gotten lost more than once in the process. It also didn't help that the address was to a door on the basement level of a building, only accessible by a small brick staircase.

Garrick descended the stairs as quickly as he could with his trunk in hand. He tried the door and found it locked. He was about to knock when he heard a gruff voice from the otherside of the door. "What'cha business here, boss?"

"Ummm… I'm sorry?," Garrick replied timidly.

"I said, what. Is. Your. Business. Here?" said the voice again, slow and drawn out, and slightly more agitated.

"Oh, yes, alright! I am here to meet with a Mr. Johannes Jonker." "Jo Jonker? What'cha need him for?" said the voice. "Well," replied Garrick, more firmly now, "I believe that I am to be his new student."

"OOOOOOHHHHH! You're the kid, you're THAT kid! Well why didn't 'cha say so! Come on in, come on!" Garrick then heard a series of metal clacks and ticks that sounded like a series of deadbolts and padlocks being unlocked. The door then swung open to reveal what looked like a back alley. Upon stepping inside, Garrick could see there were streets on both ends of the alley. Something about this reminded him of Diagon Alley. The thought of home brought a smile to his face.

"So your Garrick," said the voice again. He turned to see a goblin, about half his height. "I'm Barney, nice to make your acquaintance, and whatnot. Alright, so to Jo's shop, you gotta take this street down and take the second left. There's a big sign out front, can't miss it!"

"Oh, umm thank you! Yes, thank you!," said Garrick as he began to walk the way that the goblin was pointing and waved goodbye before turning down the street. _Oh yes,_ he thought. _This feel like home._

All down the street, he could see people in varying degrees of wizard-wear. A lilac cloak here, a pointed hat there. There did, however, seem to be much more Muggle clothes here than there was back in London. _Oh well, different country, different trends._

Looking through the windows Garrick saw one store selling brooms and Quidditch supplies, another with nothing but towers of books, stacked precariously on one another, and another that seemed to specialize in dress-wear that, upon closer examination, favored this American fashion.

When he reached the second left, Garrick turned and froze. There, maybe thirty feet in front of him, was the young woman from the deli earlier today. She didn't appear to have noticed him, but he could not have been more conspicuous. He stood rooted to the spot and watched as she walked into a shop. No, not just any shop. According to the sign hanging above the doorway, it was the shop. Johannes Jonker's shop. The very place that Garrick was going!

 _Well,_ he thought as he finally began walking toward his destination once more, _At least I'm finally here._ He took a breath and pushed through the door.


End file.
